Occupy Oakland’s strike on November 2, 2011 was infiltrated by a group of angry vandals “dressed in black” and referred to as anarchists by the Oakland police and peaceful Occupy protesters. The anarchists broke windows and vandalized area banks as well as a Whole Foods grocery store. But are they really anarchists? Do they represent any aspect of the Occupy movement? Conservative writer Ann Coulter compares the entire Occupy movement to Shay’s Rebellion of 1786 and writes, “They protest because they enjoy creating mayhem…” At least the supporters of Daniel Shays had an ideology, as do many members of the Occupy “mob.” The vandals termed anarchists, however, do not and may be better compared to the “flash mob” mentality that looted and burned in British cities earlier in the year.
Historical Fear of Anarchists
The anarchy label has always demanded a call for law and order. Anarchists, after all, want to overthrow the existing order. In May 1886 newspapers across America headlined the Chicago Haymarket strike in which numerous police were killed by anarchists, although this was never proven. But anarchists were feared and the very term conjured up images of violence, destruction, and social chaos.
In 1969 Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, “…asked the Legislature…to help him rid California campuses of criminal anarchists and latter-day Fascists.” A year earlier, former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace blamed college demonstrations on anarchists “led by college professors.” (New York Times, July 5, 1968) The portrait of an anarchist is usually the doomed revolutionary, like Che Guevara, following an emotional path but unable to convey any meaningful message to the easily influenced peasants.
Paraphrasing the father of anarchism, Mikhail Bakunin, E. J. Hobsbawm wrote that, “They may be invaluable on the first day of a revolution, but they are almost certain to be an obstacle on the second day.” In this regard Coulter was right: Daniel Shays was a Revolutionary War veteran with a sword presented to him by George Washington. On the second day, however, that period when the new nation was attempting to find itself, Shays led angry New England farmers facing foreclosures and financial ruin while Boston banks profited handsomely.
Is the Occupy Movement being Hijacked?
The great danger associated with the Occupy movement is that it’s decentralized, spontaneous-of-a-sort organization will attract people like those in Oakland that end up tainting the entire movement. What began as a protest ends in violence and is labeled as the work of anarchists, whether they truly are anarchists in any intellectual sense. Abe Greenwald writes that, “For the brick-and-mortar anarchists, the 2008 financial collapse gave surprising currency to the idea that their seemingly anachronistic philosophy was actually the only left-wing alternative to an overweening European corporate statism that had failed s spectacularly”. This describes the “new appeal of anarchism.”
In December 2008, “Some 150 protesters dressed all in black marched through the German capital’s Kreuzberg district to show support for protesting anarchists in Athens and other Greek cities who had unleashed their absolute fury.” Anger was demonstrated in solidarity with the Greeks in Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome. But, as Spiegel noted, it was a “heterogeneous movement.” The Greece that gave the West democracy is also an exporter of anarchy. Greenwald notes, for example, "It is no coincidence that Greece has seen the most anti-austerity rioting and also functions as the center of new-anarcho-terrorism."
The Occupy participants are former brokers, managers, mothers raising children, young blue collar workers wanting to identify with a cause rather than cruising through the shopping malls. They aren’t farmers or migrant workers. Many are unemployed or underemployed. Several media interviews have focused on men and women in their fifties with an AARP card in their wallets who have lost lifetime jobs. None of these dissidents are anarchists and few constitute Eric Cantor’s label of a “mob.”
The return of anarchism is a phenomenon, partially brought to the surface by Greek extremists that were supported by disparate groups in other nations that wear black and have a penchant for torching cars. In 2010 one faction claimed credit for sending bombs to foreign embassies and government agencies in Italy. In America, the Occupy movement is not expected to spawn left-wing anarchists but is being used by fringe elements, as in the case of Oakland. Bombs, Molotov cocktails, vandalism, and assassination are part of history that in 1896, for example, demonstrated through the votes of the people that change any other way but the ballot box is strictly un-American. Peaceful protests, however, are very American.
The Rebirth of Anarchism
Do the men and women in black have any ideology other than the emotions of anger, settled by acts of vandalism and violence? Uri Gordon, writing about the “revival” of anarchism in a 2007 article, states that, “anarchist forms of resistance and organizing have been at the heart of the ‘alternative globalization’ movement and have blurred, broken down, and reconstructed notions of political action and articulation.” But the anarchist resurgence, much like the Occupy movement, is not globally organized. Commenting on anarchist solidarity actions in Berlin in 2008, Spiegel magazine noted that “real organization would contradict the very self-image of anarchists.”
The Occupy movement attracts protesters with a variety of complains, although corporate greed remains the overwhelming motive. The unwelcome presence of anarchists during the Oakland demonstration should come as no surprise. In Europe, anarchists have used violence to protest austerity measures as in Greece. The binding link is the perception that the state has failed the people economically. In his study of Michael Bakunin, Richard Saltman, writing about anarchism and social conditions in the 19th Century, argues that, “…the primary and most pressing difficulty facing the European working classes was the economic question.” Bread, or the lack of it, was always a prerequisite for revolution.
Redefining the Occupy Movement
If the Occupiers survive what is predicted to be a severely cold winter season, they will have to organize around a common ideology and leadership. If joining an Occupy cause means missing a session at the local gym or leaving work early to march toward a downtown landmark or bank, the movement itself will be hijacked by other groups with violent agendas. This is what happened in Oakland.
References:
- “Anarchists Disrupt Occupy Oakland Strike,” NBC Bay Area News, November 3, 2011
- Ann Coulter, “Wingless, Bloodsucking and Parasitic: Meet the Flea Party!” Human Events, October 12, 2011
- Lawrence E. Davies, “Reagan Promises to Rid Campuses of ‘Anarchists,’” New York Times, January 8, 1969
- Florian Gathmann and others, “Anarchists in Europe: What Unites the Stone-Throwing Black Bloc?” Spiegel, December 11, 2008
- Uri Gordon, “Anarchism reloaded,” Journal of Political Ideologies, February 2007
- Abe Greenwald, “The Return of Anarchism,” Commentary, March 2011
- E.J. Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries (New American Library, 1973)
- “Left-Wing Extremists Behind Berlin Arson Attack,” Spiegel, May 24, 2011
- Richard B. Saltman, The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin (Greenwood Press, 1983)
